Framing a Hot Issue: Print media coverage of climate change from
2006 to 2012 and the influence of issue framing
Bridget K. Fahey
Syracuse University
Department of Political Science
Western Political Science Association, March 2013
Panel 03.08 - Agenda Setting in Environmental Policy
Fahey, 2
Climate change – also known as global warming, the climate crisis, the greenhouse
effect, etc. – is an inherently multifaceted policy issue. It encompasses both issues of mitigation
and adaptation, and touches a variety of areas including energy use, environmental protection,
economic development, national security, public health, and scientific accuracy. Despite being
on the public agenda since James Hansen’s testimony before Congress during the 1988
“Greenhouse Summer,” climate change fluctuates in salience on the public agenda (Trumbo,
1996). In the 25 years climate change has been on the agenda, the issue continues to have many
competing frames without any clear dominant frame choices. However, as any issue evolves and
the public and policymakers familiarize themselves with it, we expect to see the discourse to
solidify and simplify: the political battle lines become clearer even as groups enter and exit the
debate (Schattschneider, 1960).
Drawing on Matthew Nisbet’s work on scientific issue frames, this study seeks to
understand how climate change as a political issue has been framed since the recent spike in
attention in 2006. During this seven-year period, there have been a number of climate-related
events in climate change politics including the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report in February 2007, the House of Representatives
passing the Waxman-Markey climate cap-and-trade bill in May 2009, the Climategate email
scandal in November 2009, Hurricane Sandy’s landfall in New York City in November 2012 as
well as non-climate-related events like the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the economic
recession beginning in September 2008, and the rise of the Tea Party during the 2010 midterm
Congressional elections. Therefore, this study also builds on Thomas Birkland’s work on
focusing events to understand what types of events impact the overall framing of climate change
(Birkland T. A., 1998; Birkland & Lawrence, 2009).
Fahey, 3
1. LITERATURE REVIEW
Building on the framing and focusing events literatures in public policy as well as the
literature focused on climate change politics and policy, this paper seeks to contribute to our
understanding of how framing of multifaceted policy areas evolves over time, what the role of
focusing events is, and specifically how has the climate change debate in the United States
evolved. First, I consider the literature on framing; second, I look at the focusing event literature
(driven by Thomas Birkland’s work); and third, I situate this work in the greater literature on
climate change politics and policy in the United States.
1.1 Framing
Political scientists and communications scholars in the past four decades have worked to
understand the construction of frames (Chong & Druckman, 2007; Gamson & Modigliani, 1989;
Gamson & Modigliani, 1987; Scheufele, 1999), and the impact of framing on media, (Entman,
2007) on policymakers, (Callaghan & Schnell, 2005) and on public opinion (Nelson, Clawson, &
Oxley, 1997; Druckman, Fein, & Leeper, 2012). The development of the framing literature
generated many definitions of framing. At a basic level, frames suggest how the audience should
approach understanding the issue: what is the problem, what are the potential solutions, what
actors are affected by the problem, who is affected by the problem or solutions, and where the
political battle lines are drawn. This study relies on the definition of framing in Gamson and
Modigliani’s classic 1987 study on affirmative action: “a central organizing idea or story line
that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events, weaving a connection among them. The
frame suggests what the controversy is about, the essence of the issue” (p. 143).
Furthermore, frames do not necessarily imply a specific position on an issue; two actors
can have conflicting positions on the same issue within the context of a single frame. For
Fahey, 4
example, climate change can be seen as either an economic hindrance (high costs of mitigation)
or an economic opportunity (opening new markets in renewable energy) yet in both instances it
is an economic framing of climate change.
Frames are typically studied as tools employed by political actors – policymakers,
activists, and members of the media – to influence policy outcomes either by directly influencing
decision-makers’ information contexts (Jones, 1994; Baumgartner, De Boeuf, & Boydstun,
2008) or influencing public opinion in order to put pressure on decision-makers indirectly
(Nelson & Kinder, 1996; Druckman, Fein, & Leeper, 2012; Lecheler & de Vreese, 2012; Nelson,
Clawson, & Oxley, 1997; Scheufele, 1999). Frames and framing effects have been extensively
studied in this literature; however this aspect of framing is beyond the scope of this study.
Commonly, the media is used as a conduit for communicating between political actors and
influencing the public simultaneously. Thus, media framing provides a useful lens for
understanding the development of policy issue-area debates.
The line of scholarship on media framing focuses on elite media choices in the
construction of news (Scheufele, 1999; Callaghan & Schnell, 2005). Media coverage shapes
how public policy problems are understood (Bardwell, 1991; Entman, 2007). In this way, the
media serves as an agenda-setter (Weaver, McCombs, & Shaw, 2004). However, media frames
also react to events and activities of political actors. We can say, then, that the media has some
agency but it is constrained by other factors. Toby Bolsen’s work on the construction of news
demonstrates that media frames are largely driven by events (2010).1
1 Bolsen’s work looks at coverage of environmental news, which facilitates generalizing his findings to news
coverage of climate change.
Fahey, 5
1.2 Focusing Events
Since events play an important role in media coverage, we can also expect to see a
relationship between focusing events and media framing choices. Thomas Birkland’s work
defines a focusing event as “an event that is sudden; relatively uncommon; can be reasonably
defined as harmful or revealing the possibility of potentially greater future harms; has harms that
are concentrated in a particular geographic area or community of interest; and that is known to
policy makers and the public simultaneously” (1998, p. 54). Focusing events have the ability to
radically shift the political landscape, giving access to certain groups over others, bringing in
new actors, and providing the potential for new frames/more prominent frames to emerge
(Schattschneider, 1960; Birkland & Lawrence, 2009). Yet, other than Birkland’s 2009 study on
media framing after the Columbine High School shooting, the relationship between focusing
events and issue framing is under studied. This study seeks to contribute to understanding this
relationship.
1.3 Climate Change
The climate change issue is extensively addressed in the political science and policy
studies literature. Those scholars studying climate change policy and politics in the United
States mostly focus on the agenda-setting phase of policy-making (Trumbo, 1996; McCright &
Dunlap, 2000; McCright & Dunlap, 2003; McCright & Dunlap, 2011; Antonio & Brulle, 2011)
or subnational policies (see Rabe, 2004), as these are the stages where climate policy exists in the
US. This paper contributes to the discussion of agenda-setting within the climate change issue.
One of the earliest studies examining climate change framing is Craig Trumbo’s
examination of framing and claims-making by scientists and politicians in the press (1996).
Trumbo found that climate change was increasingly polarized through his examination of who
Fahey, 6
made public claims through the media. Following Trumbo are scholars like McCright and
Dunlap (2000; 2003) and Antonio and Brulle (2011) who examine the role and influence of
conservative actors in what is seen as a liberal-dominated issue. However, these studies
overlook the role of the media as an actor contributing to the policy debate. Boykoff and
Boykoff’s work on media coverage of climate change begins to fill this gap. In 2004, Boykoff
and Boykoff published a study examining the print media practice of presenting opposing points
of view on an issue which actually perpetuates bias in climate change coverage. In 2008,
Maxwell Boykoff examined television coverage of climate change and found the same ‘balance
as bias’ present. These two studies indicate the media perpetuates bias in the climate change
debate; thus we would also expect to see media influence framing.
In these studies, the multiple frames of climate change are not considered; Matthew
Nisbet’s work does. Nisbet’s work on climate change framing serves as an important jumping
off point for this study. He developed a typology of journalistic frames typically present in
science policy debates: he identifies eight common frames found (see Table 1). Nisbet
convincingly argues that employing a consistent typology for examining policy debates avoids
reinventing the wheel and allow for cross-issue comparison. Therefore, by building on this body
of scholarship, I seek to better understand the evolution of climate change framing in the United
States between 2006 and 2012, paying specific attention to the role of events.
Fahey, 7
Frame Definition (Nisbet, 2010 p. 52)
social progress improving quality of life, or solution to problems. Alternative interpretation as
harmony with nature instead of mastery, “sustainability.”
economic development/
competitiveness
economic investment, market benefits or risks; local, national or global
competitiveness.
morality/ ethics in terms of right or wrong; respecting or crossing limits, thresholds, or
boundaries.
scientific/ technical
understanding
a matter of expert understanding; what is known versus unknown; either
invokes or undermines expert consensus, calls on the authority of “sound
science”, falsifiability, or peer-review.
Pandora’s Box/
Frankenstein’s Monster/
runaway science
calls for precaution in face of possible impacts or catastrophe. Out-of-control,
a Frankenstein’s monster, or as fatalism, i.e. action is futile, path is chosen, no
turning back.
public accountability/
governance
research in the public good or serving private interests; a matter of ownership,
control, and/or patenting of research, or responsible use or abuse of science in
decision-making, “politicization.”
middle way/ alternative path around finding a possible compromise position, or a third way between
conflicting/ polarized views or opinions.
conflict/ strategy as a game among elites; who’s ahead or behind in winning debate; battle of
personalities; or groups; (usually a journalist-driven interpretation).
Table 1: Nisbet's Frames for Science Policy Debates (2010, p. 52)
2. METHODOLOGY
In order to understand the evolution of the media treatment of climate change, this study
employs content analysis methods (Neuendorf, 2002) to identify frames from a structured
random sample of New York Times articles between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2012.
The New York Times was selected because it is a national news leader – stories covered by the
New York Times are commonly covered by other media outlets and the paper sets a high standard
of quality for reporting. It is also accessible through LexisNexis Academic database, facilitating
the study. All articles from the seven-year time period that mentioned “climate change”, “global
warming”, “greenhouse effect” or some variation on those search terms were selected. A total of
9,260 articles in the New York Times fit this description2.
2 While this seems like a large volume, it is important to note that hundreds of articles are published weekly by the
New York Times and environmental issues are a tiny fraction of their coverage.
Fahey, 8
However, many of these articles were unsuitable to include in this analysis. Therefore,
all 9,260 articles were cursorily read and articles were removed if they fit any of the following
categories: (a) advertising for stories within the paper, like “In this Issue of the Times”; (b)
letters to the editor (this analysis examines elite frames rather than mass public frames); (c)
articles not substantively addressing climate change but mentioning the issue like obituaries of
climate scientists, wedding announcements, book lists, event calendars, lesson plans, poems, etc.;
(d) articles that mentioned climate change in passing or as part of a metaphor but did not engage
the issue substantively; and (e) reports about paleo-climate changes that are not linked to the
modern phenomenon. Editorials were included in this study even though they are commonly
written by non-reporters because these voices are important in the overall debate.
After removing these articles, I was left with about 5,400 articles that substantively
addressed the issue of climate change. From these 5,400 articles, 302 were selected for inclusion
in this analysis by selecting every 18th
article starting on the 14th
article (14 was selected through
a random number generator). Next, the selected articles were manually content analyzed to
determine the following: (a) how much of the article focuses on climate change – to use as a
weighting variable3, (b) the frames mentioned using Nisbet’s typology, (c) the organizing frame
4,
and (d) if the article mentions or emphasizes action to address climate change through mitigation
and/or adaptation. To ensure replicability, key words and phrases were identified for each frame
before coding began to guide the coder5. See Table 2 for framing examples in the dataset.
3 Since the LexisNexis database pulls all articles that mention climate change, this study includes articles that mention climate change in a single paragraph and articles that discuss the issue for the entire article. Therefore, by
including a weighting variable in the dataset, we give more credit to frames present in articles that devote more of
the article to climate change. (See the codebook in Appendix A for more details on this weighting technique). 4This is the organizing frame for the article, and is easily determined while reading the article. 5 See the codebook in Appendix A for these key words and phrases
Fahey, 9
Frame Example
Social Progress
"Before it Disappears" by Allen Salkin Dec. 16, 2007 (sustainability)
“Almost all of these trips are marketed as environmentally aware and eco-sensitive -- they are,
after all, a grand tour of the devastating effects of global warming. But the travel industry,
some environmentalists say, is preying on the frenzy. This kind of travel, they argue, is
hardly green. It's greedy, requiring airplanes and boats as well as new hotels."
Economic
Development
"Emissions of CO2 Set For Best Drop in 40 Years" by Jad Mouawad Sept 22, 2009
"The main factor behind this year's drop in emissions is the slowdown in industrial activity and
trade around the world, according to a study due to be released in November by the
International Energy Agency."
Morality
"Pastors in Northwest Find Focus in 'Green'" by William Yardley Jan 16, 2010
"Religious leaders have been preaching environmentalism for years, and much attention has
focused on politically powerful evangelical Christian leaders who have taken up climate
change as a cause. Yet some smaller, older and often struggling mainline churches are also
going greener, reducing their carbon footprint by upgrading basement boilers and
streamlining the Sunday bulletin, swapping Styrofoam for ceramic mugs at coffee hour and
tending jumbled vegetable gardens where lawns once were carefully cultivated."
Scientific/
Technological
Understanding
"A Closer Look at CO2's Long Goodbye" by Andrew C. Revkin Dec 29, 2011
"Thus, while the lifetime of a particular molecule is roughly 5 years (atmosphere loading of
about 800 GtC divided by 60 plus 90 gross fluxes), the net effect is that only about half of
the annual addition of fossil fuel CO2 is taken up, and the persistence time of a significant
part of the perturbation is over 1,000 years."
Pandora's Box
"Nature Votes Last" by Timothy Egan Nov 1, 2012
"Did global warming cause Sandy to be so massive, so destructive, so unfathomable? There's
no consensus on this specific storm. But virtually every reputable atmospheric scientist who
is not tied by money to an oil or coal company says that this week's storm is a picture of
what's to come, if not already here."
Public
Accountability
"Global Warming and Your Wallet" by the New York Times editorial board July 6, 2007
"But for all the talk about warming, leading politicians have yet to educate their constituents
(and their colleagues) about an unpleasant and inescapable truth: any serious effort to fight
warming will require everyone to pay more for energy."
Middle Way
"Mixing in Some Carbon" by Claire Cain Miller March 22, 2010
"It seems like alchemy: a Silicon Valley start-up says it has found a way to capture the carbon
dioxide emissions from coal and gas power plants and lock them into cement."
Conflict/Strategy
"U.S. and China Narrow Differences at Climate Conference" by John M. Broder Dec 8, 2010 "The United States and China have significantly narrowed their differences on the verification
of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, officials said, providing hope that a United
Nations conference here on climate change can achieve some modest success."
Table 2: Examples of Frame Codes
Fahey, 10
3. RESULTS
Between 2006 and 2012, there were 302 valid observations. See Table 3 for descriptive
statistics of the frames present in each article.
Frame Count Percentage Confidence Interval
Social progress frame 145 48.01 42.51 – 53.51
Economic development/competiveness frame 124 41.06 35.56 – 46.56
Morality/ethics frame 26 8.61 3.11 – 14.11
Scientific/technical understanding 150 49.67 44.17 – 55.17
Pandora’s Box frame 83 27.48 21.98 – 32.98
Public accountability/governance 112 37.09 31.59 – 42.59
Middle way/alternative path 45 14.90 9.40 – 20.40
Conflict/strategy 84 27.81 22.31 – 33.31
N = 302
Table 3: Descriptive Statistics: Frame Frequencies
As these data show, the social progress, economic development, scientific, and public
accountability frames are prevalent in the sample. The confidence interval for these data is +5.5
percentage points, thus we can be 95% confident that each of these four frames is present in the
climate change debate about 30 to 45% of the time. The Pandora’s Box and conflict/strategy
frames are present about 27% of the time, and the middle way frames are only present about 15%
of the time. Surprisingly, the morality frames were present in the data less than 9% of the time.
While all eight frames identified by Nisbet were present in The New York Times coverage of
climate change, they were not equally represented. For each article, an organizing frame was
also identified, see Table 4.
As Table 4 shows, there is no clear dominant organizing frame: economic development,
scientific/technical understanding, and conflict/strategy are the modal leaders as each are
organizing frames in about 15% of the articles. Next, social progress, Pandora’s Box, and public
accountability frames are organizing frames in about 13% of the articles. The morality frames
Fahey, 11
Frame Count Percentage Confidence Interval
Social progress frame 39 12.91 7.41 – 18.41
Economic development/competiveness frame 50 16.56 11.06 – 22.06
Morality/ethics frame 5 1.66 -3.84 – 7.16
Scientific/technical understanding 61 20.2 14.70 – 25.70
Pandora’s Box frame 40 13.25 7.75 – 18.75
Public accountability/governance 39 12.91 7.41 – 18.41
Middle way/alternative path 12 3.97 -1.53 – 9.47
Conflict/strategy 47 15.56 10.06 – 21.06
N = 302
Table 4: Descriptive Statistics: Organizing Frames
and the middle way frames are organizing frames in less than 5% of the articles. The confidence
intervals in Table 4 show that the morality and middle way frames range into the negative
numbers, indicating that in the overall population of print media coverage, these frames are
barely present as organizing frames.
While these figures show that there is no clear dominant frame, this study is also
interested in how these frames change over time. Figure 1 shows a timeline of major climate
change events and frames as the change over time. The frames in the graph are weighted by how
much of the article addressed climate change: if only a small amount of the article was devoted
to climate change it was coded 1, and if the entire article was devoted to climate change it was
coded 4 (see Appendix A for more on coding choices). The frames were all coded as dummy
variables, so 1 indicates the frame is present and 0 indicates it was absent. Using the weighting
variable as a multiplier, an article completed about climate change with a frame present gets a
value of 4 whereas an article that cursorily mentions climate change with a frame present gets a
value of 1.
In order to make sense of these values, they were aggregated in three-month periods.
These quarter-year groups yield 28 data points that are plotted in Figure 1. The frames were
grouped into three categories: (1) frames for understanding the problem – morality, scientific,
Fahey, 12
and Pandora’s Box frames, (2) frames for determining the best solutions – social progress,
economic development, and scientific frames, and (3) frames for negotiating solutions – public
accountability, middle way, and conflict frames. As the graphs indicate, these frames fluctuate
over time with a few noticeable spikes.
In late 2007, there are spikes in the scientific, Pandora’s Box, and social progress frames.
This corresponds with Al Gore and the IPCC winning the Nobel Peace Prize (October 2007). In
terms of proportions, during the October-December 2007 quarter, the social progress frame was
present in 70% of stories, the scientific frame was present in 70% of stories, and the Pandora’s
Box frame was present in 54% of stories. Compared to the overall proportion of frames (see
Table 3), these frames are more prevalent during this time than the overall average. While this
does not serve as conclusive proof that the Nobel Prize award was a focusing event, it suggests
that events during this time period influenced the frequency of these frames over other choices.
The Copenhagen Summit – the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) 15 meeting – corresponds with a spike in the public
accountability frame in October-December 2009. During this period, the proportion of public
accountability frames is approximately 54% which is above the overall proportion of 38%. Even
with a confidence interval of +5.5 percentage points, these two values are different. At this
point, there was considerable hope that the Obama Administration would be able to negotiate a
successor to the Kyoto Protocol during that meeting. However, that did not come to fruition.
The other noticeable spike occurs at the end of the seven-year period starting in April-
June 2011 and continuing through October-December 2012 where the scientific, social progress,
and economic development frames begin to rise. During this period, the proportion of scientific
frames ranges between 45% and 80% of articles in those quarters, economic frames range
Fahey, 13
Figure 1: Framing of climate change over time
Fahey, 14
between 15% and 72%, and scientific frames range between 50% and 60%. Only the scientific
frames during the whole period are above the overall proportion (see Table 3), but there are
spikes in certain quarters for social progress and economic frames that do exceed the overall
average. These patterns are not easily explained by any large events, but could be caused by
actions by activists like Bill McKibben’s 350.org group and more traditional environmental
activist groups like the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, or the Environmental
Defense Fund. These groups have been organizing around fighting the KeystoneXL pipeline and
lobbying government for climate change action more generally.
As Figure 1 also shows, there was a rise in all frame-types (except morality and economic
development) in the last half of 2012. This can be attributed to two major events: (1) the 2012
Presidential election and (2) the landfall of Hurricane Sandy in New York City. While the major
presidential candidates did not address climate change until after Hurricane Sandy hit New York
City, other actors were actively working to include climate change in the electoral debate.
Additionally, the landfall of Hurricane Sandy served as a focusing event for climate change. On
November 1, 2012 Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a public statement saying the
hurricane caused him to rethink the importance of climate change (while also endorsing
President Obama’s re-election bid – an unusual move for the Republican mayor). This was the
first time a major political actor connected a hurricane to climate change, and he was soon joined
by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in attributing events like Hurricane Sandy to climate
change. It is important, however, to keep in mind that the New York Times is likely to have
biased coverage of Hurricane Sandy because the storm devastated their home city. The reporting
and editorial staffs of the New York Times are likely to be personally impacted by the storm and
Fahey, 15
more inclined to cover climate change as connected to the storm. Therefore, conclusions about
the influence of Hurricane Sandy should be made cautiously at this time.
Simple bivariate regressions were run regressing each of the eight framing choices6 on
coverage over time7 to determine if there was a statistically significant change in the proportion
of articles with each frame over time.
Frames (weighted values) Coefficients R2
social progress -0.629 0.0001
(3.146)
economic development -7.196** 0.0161
(3.245)
morality/ethics 8.183 0.0079
(5.294)
scientific/technological understanding 3.901) 0.0054
(3.057)
Pandora’s Box 7.851 0.0160
(3.557)
public accountability/governance -2.849 0.0027
(3.175)
middle way/alternative path 0.491 0.0000
(4.243)
conflict/strategy 3.237 0.0028
(3.503)
Observations 302
Standard errors in parentheses
*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
Table 5: Regressions of frames on coverage over time
As these regressions show, only the coefficient for economic development is statistically
significant and it has a negative value, indicating that as time goes on the number of economic
frames declines. This is a surprising finding because we would expect economic framing to
increase during the 2008 recession and continue as the economy continues to be most
American’s top priority. The (low) R2 values are included, but they should be largely discounted
because these regressions were created to understand the slope of the frames’ change over time
6 This yields eight separate regression results. 7 expressed by the number of the article. As the sample was structured, this approach allows a rough equation
between time and the article number. There are times when the coverage of the issue spikes (many articles in a
single day or week), but each article is treated as another voice moving the debate forward, this unevenness in
coverage is not problematic.
Fahey, 16
and these R2 values only serve to tell us what the descriptive statistics in Table 3 show more
clearly.
Data were also collected about each article measuring if it mentioned a pro-, neutral, or
anti-action position on mitigation or adaption; 258 articles had a discernible position. The New
York Times coverage of this issue has a bias towards promoting action on climate change, see
Table 6.
Position Count Percentage Confidence Interval
anti-action 9 3.49 -2.01 – 8.99
neutral 69 26.74 21.24 – 32.24
pro-action 180 69.77 64.26 – 75.27
N = 258
Table 6: Position on action on climate change
As the figures show, a large majority of articles (approximately 70%) promote action on climate
change and a tiny percentage is anti-action (approximately 3.5%).
4. DISCUSSION
As these results show, climate change continues to be a multifaceted issue with four
frame modes: social progress, economic development, scientific/technical understanding, and
public accountability/governance. The social progress and economic development frames deal
primarily with determining appropriate solutions to the problem. The scientific/technical
understanding frame fits two roles: understanding the problem and determining solutions. The
only modal frame concerned with negotiating solutions (policies) is the public accountability
frame. These results imply that the climate change debate in the US is still stuck in the early
phases of solution determination. While I do not claim that these framing patterns cause climate
change policy to be stagnant, we can infer that the public debate is unmoving even in light of
major events. The recent movement on climate change by the Obama Administration (i.e.
Fahey, 17
Obama’s focus on climate change in his 2013 inaugural address and State of the Union address)
might mean this is changing. However, these events are still unfolding and we cannot yet draw
solid conclusions.
Pandora’s Box frames and conflict/strategy frames were each present in about 28% of the
articles. While this is a high proportion, it is a little surprising they were not more prevalent.
Environmentalists are commonly charged with being ‘alarmist’ and claiming that human damage
to the environment is opening a Pandora’s Box (see Shellenberger & Nordhaus, 2007). Climate
change activists are especially guilty of making these types of claims. So, while we see this
message is clearly present in media debates, it does not dominate the New York Times’ coverage
of the issue. This might indicate that climate activists play a smaller role in shaping the debate
compared to other actors like economic actors and policymakers.
Additionally, with the rise of the Tea Party in the 2010 Congressinoal elections, two
Presidential electinos captured within this time period, and the yearly UNFCCC COP meetings
in December, it is surprising that conflict/strategy frames were not more prevalent. Possibly this
is because the climate change debate is still considering solution possibilities, thus policy makers
are not forced to take public positions. It could also be an effect of the successful conservative
countermobilization (McCright & Dunlap, 2003; Antonio & Brulle, 2011) which largely kept
climate change off the governmental agenda between 2010 and 2011.
It is also worth considering which frames were generally missing from the debate:
morality/ethics and middle way/alternative path frames. Morality/ethics frames are essentially
missing from the media coverage of climate change. This is an interesting finding because it is
possible that the moral/ethical argument would benefit climate activists arguing that we have
obligations to communities in danger of experiencing destructive impacts of climate change, to
Fahey, 18
future generations, and to the natural world. At best, the confidence interval implies the true
frequency of morality frames in print media coverage is 14%; these data show it is present in
only 8.6% of articles over a seven-year period. It is also the organizing frame in only 1.7% of
articles. Possibly this is another reflection that climate activists play a smaller role in shaping the
overall climate change debate than other actors.
While the frequency of middle way/alternative path frames is not as low as the
morality/ethics frame, this frame is only present in about 15% of the articles and the organizing
frame in 4% of articles. So, as the debate on climate change progresses, we find little ground for
a way forward past the polarization indentified by Antonio & Brulle (2011) and McCright &
Dunlap (2000, 2003, 2011). This has important implications for the potential of climate change
policy: if we are not discussing possible solutions we can agree on, it is unlikely we will see
policy change anytime soon.
These data do not conclusively show that events influence the overall framing of climate
change. There is an influence of Hurricane Sandy, the Copenhagen COP15 summit, and the
Nobel Prize awarded to the IPCC and Al Gore, however other events like the 2008 economic
downturn and the 2009 Climategate scandal do not appear to have any impact. While this is not
explored in this paper, the events with an impact on framing saw the mobilization of climate-
specific advocacy organizations (both those advocating for action and climate-skeptics in the
case of Climategate). As Birkland’s (1998) article on focusing events and group mobilization
demonstrates, we would expect this type of focusing event to open political space for advocacy
group action. However, it is not clear why these events and not other COP meetings or other
events did not have a noticeable impact. Future research should examine these different types of
Fahey, 19
events in order to better understand why some events impact the overall debate while others do
not.
Finally, it is interesting that the New York Times is biased towards publishing articles that
promote action to address climate change. This bias is present throughout entire the seven-year
period studied in this project. This finding confirms the conclusions drawn by Entman (2007)
and Lecheler & de Vreese (2012) that the media introduce bias into public debates, yet it might
also indicate that a respected newspaper like the New York Times limits skeptics’ access.
5. CONCLUSION
As these data show, climate change continues to be a multi-faceted issue over this seven-
year period. Some events seem to influence the overall framing of the issue, but not all of these
focusing events and political events have the same impact. Therefore, we can conclude that in
multifaceted issues like climate change, there is no straightforward connection between focusing
events and framing. Additionally, these data demonstrate that there are no frames that emerge as
the one or two dominant frames. In terms of our understanding of climate change politics, the
many frames associated with the issue mean there are many potential access points for political
actors, especially activists who are trying to influence policymakers. However, it also indicates
that there are a lot of perspectives on the issue in the public discourse.
This paper cannot conclusively prove that this type of multiplicity prevents policy
formulation; but these data do show that in the United States where there is no unified national
climate change policy a multiplicity of frames persist over time. A useful future study in
comparative politics could compare the US situation to another country where climate change
policy has been established – like the United Kingdom – to try and determine if a similar
multiplicity of frames exists in that policy debate.
Fahey, 20
The results from this study can serve as a foundation for other areas of research to
understand (a) the specific issue of climate change framing, (b) framing of multifaceted issues
more generally, and (c) the role of focusing events in influencing framing. By expanding the
time-frame of analysis before 2006 and continuing to collect data past 2012, this type of study
can examine the evolution of framing over a long period. Similar to the work completed by
Baumgartner, De Boeuf, & Boydstun on the Death Penalty (2008), this study could be expanded
to help us understanding the evolution of the climate change issue area. Additionally, since there
was a bias observed in the New York Times’ coverage of the issue (both promoting action to
address the issue and a potential bias becauase of Hurricane Sandy), it would be beneficial to add
other newspaper sources to this analysis like the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, LA Times,
etc. The same method applied to these other news sources would greatly expand the sample and
hopefully elminiate those biases (or confirm that they are true patterns and not biases).
Furthermore, these data can serve as a single case study in a future study looking at the
framing of multifaceted issues. By treating climate change as one case, other policy issues like
healthcare reform or public education could be added as cases and analyzed to determine what
aspects of an issue lead to the different observed framing patterns. A study like this could also
incorporate similar focusing events to help shed light on which characteristics of a focusing
event cause it to have an impact on the overall framing pattern and which characteristics do not.
Again, the database of framing choices over time produced in this work can serve as a basis for
these studies.
Overall, we see that in the United States, climate change remains a complex issue with
many framing choices. The role of focusing events is not clear, but we infer from these data that
in the right conditions they influence the overall debate. Like much of the academic work on
Fahey, 21
framing, this study provides a few answers but raises even more questions worthy of
consideration in future studies.
Fahey, 22
5. WORKS CITED
Agresti, A., & Finlay, B. (2009). Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences (4th ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Anderson, J. E. (2011). Public Policymaking (7th Edition ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth
Cengage Learning.
Antonio, R. J., & Brulle, R. J. (2011). The Unbearable Lightness of Politics: Climate Change
Denial and Political Polarization. Sociological Quarterly, 195-202.
Bardwell, L. V. (1991). Problem-Framing: A Perspective on Environmental Problem-Solving.
Environmental Management, 15(5), 603-612.
Baumgartner, F. R., De Boeuf, S. L., & Boydstun, A. E. (2008). The Decline of the Death
Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Birkland, T. A. (1998, Jan. - Apr.). Focusing Events, Mobilization, and Agenda Setting. Journal
of Public Policy, 18(1), 53-74.
Birkland, T. A. (2010). An Introduction to the Policy Process: Theories, Concepts, and Models
of Public Policy Making (3rd ed.). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Birkland, T. A., & Lawrence, R. G. (2009). Media Framing and Policy Change After Columbine.
American Behavioral Scientists, 1405-1425.
Bolsen, T. (2010, December). The Construction of News: Energy Crises, Advocacy Messages,
and Frames toward Conservation. International Journal of Press/Politics, 16(2), 143-163.
Boykoff, M. T. (2008). Lost in translation? United States television news coverage of
anthropogenic climate change, 1995-2004. Climatic Change, 86, 1-11.
Boykoff, M. T., & Boykoff, J. M. (2004). Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige
press. Global Environmental Change, 14, 125-136.
Fahey, 23
Callaghan, K., & Schnell, F. (2005). Framing American Politics. Pittsburgh, PA: Univ. of
Pittsburgh.
Chong, D., & Druckman, J. N. (2007). Framing Theory. Annual Review of Political Science, 10,
103-126.
Druckman, J. N., Fein, J., & Leeper, T. J. (2012). A Source of Bias in Public Opinion Stability.
American Political Science Review, 106(2), 430-455.
Entman, R. M. (2007). Framing Bias: Media in the Distribution of Power. Journal of
Communication, 57, 163-173.
Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. (1987). The Changing Culture of Affirmative Action.
Research in Political Sociology, 3, 137-177.
Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear
Power: A Constructionist Approach. American Journal of Sociology, 95(1), 1-37.
Hulme, M. (2009). Why We Disagree About Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Jones, B. D. (1994). Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Lecheler, S., & de Vreese, C. H. (2012). News Framing and Public Opinion: A Mediation
Analysis of Framing Effects. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 89(2),
185-204.
McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2000). Challenging Global Warming as a Social Problem: An
Analysis of the Conservative Movement's Counter-Claims. Social Problems, 47(4), 499-
522.
Fahey, 24
McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2003). Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement's
Impact on U.S. Climate Change Policy. Social Problems, 50(3), 348-373.
McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2011). The Politicization of Climate Change and Polarization
in the American Public's Views of Global Warming, 2001-2010. Sociological Quarterly,
52, 155-194.
Nelson, T. E., & Kinder, D. R. (1996). Issue Frames and Group-Centrism in American Public
Opinion. Journal of Politics, 58(4), 1055-1078.
Nelson, T. E., Clawson, R. A., & Oxley, Z. M. (1997). Media Framing of a Civil Liberties
Conflict and Its Effect on Tolerance. American Political Science Review, 91(3), 567-583.
Neuendorf, K. (2002). The Content Analysis Guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Nisbet, M. (2010). Knowledge Into Action: Framing the Debates Over Climate Change and
Poverty. In P. D'Angelo, & J. Kuypers, Doing News Frame Analysis (pp. 43-83). New
York, NY: Routledge.
Schattschneider, E. E. (1960). The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in
America. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace.
Scheufele, D. A. (1999). Framing as a Theory of Media Effects. Journal of Communication,
Winter, 103-122.
Shanahan, E. A., McBeth, M. K., Hathaway, P. L., & Arnell, R. J. (2008). Conduit or
contributor? The role of media in policy change theory. Policy Science, 41, 115-138.
Shellenberger, M., & Nordhaus, T. (2007). Break Through: From the Death of
Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co.
Stone, D. (2002). Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making (Revised ed.). New
York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.
Fahey, 25
Trumbo, C. (1996). Constructing climate change: claims and frames in US news coverage of an
environmental issue. Public Understanding of Science, 5, 269-282.
Weaver, D., McCombs, M., & Shaw, D. L. (2004). Agenda-Setting Research: Issue, Attributes,
and Influences. In L. L. Kaid (Ed.), Handbook of Political Communication (pp. 257-282).
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Fahey, 26
6. APPENDIX A: CODEBOOK
Codebook for Climate Change Framing 2006 to 2012
DATA:
News media articles were collected from LexisNexis Academic for January 1, 2006 through
December 31, 2012. Articles were selected using the following search terms: “climate change”
or “global warming” or "greenhouse effect" and were in the New York Times (a news leader). By
choosing these search filters, the researcher was able to eliminate articles which only casually
mentioned climate change or global warming.
Next, articles were eliminated from the population of articles if they fit the following categories:
- Letters to the Editor
- Corrections
- Education lesson plans
- Wedding announcements
- Quizzes
- Book reviews or performance reviews
- “In This Issue” synopsis (part of the New York Times front page, advertising what is in
the paper)
- Articles that were not substantively about the issue of climate change or not news
articles, like obituaries, poetry and short stories, etc.
o Articles about ancient/ paleo-climate change
o Articles that use a candidate’s position about GCC as an example but do not
indicate what that position is
Began with approximately 9200 articles, after eliminating these types of articles there are
approximately 5400 articles for analysis.
Structured random sampling: A random number generator was used to pick a number between 1
and 18: it generated 14. Starting on the 14th number, every 18
th article was selected. This will
result in ~300 articles selected for the sample.
Fahey, 27
CODING:
Column Coding Notes
Article Number 1 to 302 reference
Date published DD.MM.YY
Source Desk from NYT
Which key words “global warming” or “climate change” or
“greenhouse effect”
GW = 1
CC = 2
GHE = 3
None explicitly mentioned = .
How much of the
article focuses
on climate
change
1 = less than ¼ of article devoted issue
2 = ¼ to ½ of article devoted to issue
3 = ½ to ¾ of article devoted to issue
4 = ¾ to all of article devoted to issue
Nisbet’s frames
mentioned
Social progress Multiple dummy variables
created because there can be
more than one frame in an
article.
See coding instructions below
for how these are determined.
Economic development/ competitiveness
Morality/ ethics
Scientific/ technical understanding
Pandora’s Box/ Frankenstein’s monster/
runaway science
Public accountability/ governance
Middle way/ alternative path
Conflict/ strategy
Other (identify)
Organizing
frame
1 = Social progress
2 = economic development/ competitiveness
3 = morality/ ethics
4 = scientific/ technical understanding
5 = Pandora’s Box/ Frankenstein’s Monster/
runaway science
6 = public accountability/ governance
7 = middle way/ alternative path
8 = conflict/ strategy
9 = other
Used for most of the analysis,
and for determining the
appropriate causal story.
See coding instructions below
for how these are determined.
Pro-action for
climate change
mitigation or
adaptation
0 = article emphasizes/advocates against
action
1 = article does not emphasizes/advocates
for action to mitigate or adapt to climate
change (neutral position)
2 = article emphasizes/advocates for action
to mitigate or adapt to climate change
. = no discernible position
Fahey, 28
CODING INSTRUCTIONS:
Determining Frames from Nisbet’s Typology:
In order to select which frame is most appropriate, the researcher will look for key terms
and phrases in the article. While these key terms and phrases are not all-encompassing,
they will correctly identify the story as belonging to that frame. This is done to avoid
subjectivity from the researcher. This frames the issue of climate change – not the news
article itself. Climate change could be framed as a Pandora’s Box but the article is
mostly about international negotiations.
Frame Definition (Nisbet, 2010 p. 52) Key Words/ Phrases
social progress
improving quality of life, or solution to
problems. Alternative interpretation as harmony
with nature instead of mastery, “sustainability.”
Sustainability, work with nature,
harmony, environmentalism
(describing individuals or groups),
solving more than just GCC – solving
societal ills
economic development/
competitiveness
economic investment, market benefits or risks;
local, national or global competitiveness.
Economy, taxes, markets, subsidies,
competitive, money, investment, fund,
business/firms
morality/ ethics in terms of right or wrong; respecting or crossing
limits, thresholds, or boundaries.
Morals, ethics, right path, religion,
spirituality, good v. bad, supreme being
scientific/ technical
understanding
a matter of expert understanding; what is known versus unknown; either invokes or undermines
expert consensus, calls on the authority of
“sound science”, falsifiability, or peer-review.
Technology, science, laboratory, findings, peer-review, new study,
academic, determinism
Pandora’s Box/
Frankenstein’s
Monster/ runaway
science
calls for precaution in face of possible impacts
or catastrophe. Out-of-control, a Frankenstein’s
monster, or as fatalism, i.e. action is futile, path
is chosen, no turning back.
Unknown, catastrophe, disaster, out-
of-control, precaution, mitigation (to
prevent the worst)
public accountability/
governance
research in the public good or serving private interests; a matter of ownership, control, and/or
patenting of research, or responsible use or
abuse of science in decision-making,
“politicization.”
Public good, public service, accountability, governing, research,
responsibility
middle way/ alternative
path
around finding a possible compromise position,
or a third way between conflicting/ polarized
views or opinions.
Compromise, another/ third path, new
way, new solutions, bipartisan
conflict/ strategy
as a game among elites; who’s ahead or behind
in winning debate; battle of personalities; or
groups; (usually a journalist-driven
interpretation).
Horse race articles, political strategy,
polarization, divergent views
other The eight frames identified by Nisbet cannot be
all-inclusive. This coding space is left open for
those occasions where none of the eight apply.
